ADMISSIONS HALTED TO 3 RETIREMENT HOMES

A state agency has placed a moratorium on admissions to a group of Lauderhill retirement homes and has recommended the denial of licenses for another facility in Lauderhill and two in Hollywood.

The Oakland Park Retirement Apartments, located at 5605 NW 27th Court, Lauderhill, and two nearby annexes -- the OPRA Annex and OPRA II, were prohibited Thursday from admitting new residents until nutrition and food supply problems are corrected.

The state Office of Licensure and Certification also recommended that annual licenses be denied for the Inverrary Retirement Center, located at 5711 NW 28th St., Lauderhill, and the Ida Belle Hill Boarding Home and Hill's Retirement Home, located at 5512 and 5218 Mayo St. in Hollywood.

All the homes -- called Adult Congregate Living Facilities -- had been cited by OLC for numerous violations during the last year.

At Oakland Park Retirement and the annexes -- which are licensed to house a maximum of 116 residents -- the OLC's nutritionist found an insufficient food supply and inadequate meals served when she conducted a recent inspection.

"We felt that they have too many problems just to let them continue admitting patients to the facility," said Lee Dykes, the OLC area supervisor. "There were a lot of other deficiences, but they would normally be given an opportunity to correct those. But the lack of an adequate supply of food on hand was an immediate health hazard to residents."

The facilties' owner, Dorothy Emrick, denied Friday that there were any problems with food.

"I don't know if the nutritionist knows her business," said Emrick. "It is not true. We definitely provide nutritious meals. An average of $2,000 a month goes into food."

According to an OLC report, on one visit, the nutritionist found lunch consisted of a one-ounce piece of cheese on two slices of bread, and soup.

Dykes said the nutritionist was also approached by a number of residents, all of whom are elderly, who complained about the lack of food and proper nutrition. She later found documentation proving that a number of residents had lost weight, he added.

According to Dykes, the facilities also have been cited for numerous building and fire safety deficiences in the past year, such as lack of fire retardant paint on exits, exposed wiring, exit doors with chains, and gates and fences outside with padlocks.

But Emrick argued that that the OLC inspectors were just "looking to find something wrong."

"I have a very clean place," she said. ". . . They may be right (about some of the building violations), but I have not had the time nor the money to do all they want me to do. They really put me in jeopardy. It's so unfair. What they want me to do costs thousands of dollars."

At Inverrary Retirement Center, the OLC recommended that the facility's license -- due to expire in April -- be denied because the ACLF failed to correct a fire safety violation in not providing enough exit doors. The home was fined in January for this violation.

Last August, the facility also was fined $1,600 for a number of uncorrected deficiencies, including failure to keep daily medication records, to equip the kitchen stove with an approved exhaust hood, to plan and post menus where residents could see them, and lack of staff qualified in first aid training.

The facility's owner, Jo Anne Van Osdale, could not be reached for comment Friday.

At Ida Belle Hill and Hill's Retirement Home, the OLC recently found too many residents and too few beds.

According to an OLC report, the two facilities are licensed for a total of 18 people, but 20 residents and only 15 beds were found on a March 5 inspection.

The report stated that one resident slept on a rollaway bed in the hallway and four others slept on sofas.

During a September inspection, OLC found numerous uncorrected violations, including lack of staff qualified in first aid training, no accurate records of daily medication administration, no legal contracts for some residents, exposed wiring, and no emergency lighting.

Ida Belle Hill, the facilities' owner, denied that her ACLFs are overcrowded.

"I don't have overcrowding. I'm not overcrowded. They all have beds," she said, adding, "The first aid training is the only thing that hasn't been completed. Everything else is completed."